This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 8th December 2012.
THE
POISON TREE
Monday,
STV, 9pm
THIS
WORLD: CUBA WITH SIMON REEVE
Tuesday,
BBC2, 9pm
Paul
Whitelaw
The
broadcasting equivalent of an airport page-turner, the world of ITV
drama is traditionally home to psychopaths, murderers and terrorised
middle-class families. Martin Clunes' son has been kidnapped by a
lunatic! Sarah Lancashire is being stalked by a pervert! Trevor Eve
has only gone and got himself involved in a deadly game of cat and
mouse! You know, that sort of thing.
So
you won't be shocked to learn that their new two-part drama, THE
POISON TREE, is yet another psychological thriller in which
things go from bad to worse for a troubled household of desperately
unlucky sods.
Produced
by STV, it stars MyAnna Buring as Karen, a woman who's spent twelve
years waiting for her partner, Rex (Matthew Goode), to be released
from prison. With a sentence as lengthy as that, it's obvious the
Rex's crime was – to put it mildly - rather serious, and the
central mystery of exactly what it was is sustained quite effectively
throughout the opening episode.
Desperate
to move on from this dark chapter in their lives, Karen, Rex and
their teenage daughter – who thinks daddy was banged up for tax
evasion – begin life anew in a remote cottage by the sea, because
that's the sort of moodily atmospheric setting one requires in dramas
of this nature. Alas, their hopes are dashed almost immediately, as
Karen starts to receive a series of sinister phone calls and texts of
the “I know what you did” variety, and their guilty secret
threatens to explode.
Most
of the action unfolds in extended flashbacks to 1999, when mousy
Karen (who hasn't aged a day since) abruptly befriends an irritating
free-spirit called Biba (yes, really) who brings her out of her shell
during an evening taking fashionable '90s drug “Ecstasy”. Biba
also introduces Karen to her brother and housemate Rex, and together
they enjoy a bohemian lifestyle subsidised by the family's seemingly
inexhaustible independent wealth.
Inevitably,
it all goes horribly wrong once Biba reveals herself to be a complete
fruitcake – I could've told Karen that the moment she met her –
and the drugs and company she keeps grow harder and more dangerous.
Her conspicuous absence from the scenes set in the present day
certainly suggests that things didn't exactly pan out well for this
overstated hippie stereotype.
Despite
climaxing with two unlikely dramatic bombshells in rapid succession,
part one suggests The Poison Tree is a perfectly serviceable,
entertaining pot-boiler. Unfortunately, as is so often the way with
these things, part two degenerates into unmitigated bullshit, as
the already thinly-drawn characters start behaving implausibly simply
to serve the mechanics of the shoddy and nonsensical plot.
Goode
wanders through the production looking remarkably sanguine for a man
who's just spent twelve hellish years in prison. But with such an
underwritten part, there's not much else he can do. Buring fares
slightly better, delivering a competent portrayal of the same
character at two very different stages in her life. But The Poison
Tree is ultimately a crashing waste of time. It doesn't even have
a tree oozing poison in it. What a swizz.
“Buenos
dias!” Ah, look, it's that nice Simon Reeve, the hale and hearty
travel presenter whose ability to get on famously with the peoples of
the world is central to the appeal of his programmes. In his latest
adventure, THIS WORLD: CUBA WITH SIMON REEVE, he investigates
the sweeping economic reforms that have transformed one of the
world's last Communist strongholds into a burgeoning crucible of
grass roots capitalism.
With
Cuba's economy in ruins, its government has been forced to cut one
million public-sector jobs and – by Castro's beard! - actually
encourage self-employed entrepreneurs in the hope of generating
urgent tax revenues. Reeve dives enthusiastically into this brave new
world of private enterprise, where he meets ordinary citizens – he
was only allowed into the country if he promised not to interview any
prominent political dissidents – to discuss the second most
significant revolution in Cuban history.
His
many new friends include a qualified doctor paid so little by the
state he now moonlights as a plumbing supplies salesman; a former
cheese-trader currently earning a fortune on Havana's emerging
property market; and the owner of a nascent McDonald's-style fast
food franchise. He also discovers that the legendary Bay of Pigs –
a symbolic site central to the tenets of the revolution – is now
surrounded by privately-owned guest houses.
The
point of all of this, of course, is that – healthcare and
arts-funding aside - Castro's system has failed dismally, and that
for too long Cuba's population has been forced to endure appalling
living conditions under the oppressive gaze of a totalitarian regime.
But now that the iron fist is loosening its grip, for how much longer
can the government square its Communist manifesto with the
unstoppable influx of western consumerism?
While
the overall mood is cautiously optimistic, it's constantly undermined
by images of abandoned sugar mills and crumbling houses. And the fact
that few of Reeves' interviewees are prepared to say anything
remotely negative serves as a grim reminder of Cuba's atrocious human
rights record. It's a commendably clear-eyed and revealing report
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